


Leesburg

by Cecilia (ceciliaregent), ceciliaregent



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:22:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2463083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceciliaregent/pseuds/Cecilia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceciliaregent/pseuds/ceciliaregent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's only a two-hour drive, less if you're willing to speed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leesburg

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sophiahelix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sky's the Limit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159494) by [sophiahelix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/pseuds/sophiahelix). 



> Happy birthday!

The first thing he feels when he's aware enough to know it is a pounding in his temple, a bright flare of pain when he opens his eyes, so he shuts them again and just tries to take stock. He's on his side like always, to fit the tight space, one leg stretched out and his foot hanging off the edge of the mattress, the other thrown over Tim, who's crowded against the wall. Buster can't see it, but he knows Tim's left arm is down in the gap, and his ass is half off the bed; the only reason he's not sliding off altogether is that Buster's got an arm around him too. He can't believe they've been doing this for a year and a half, two guys in a twin not even big enough for Buster by himself. Well, they won't be doing it much longer.

Buster doesn't usually have trouble with hangovers, because he doesn't usually drink enough to get really drunk -- just enough to take the edge off, enough to be social. On the other hand, Tim doesn't usually get taken with the tenth pick in the amateur draft. They've gone out every night this week, with the team, mostly, but last night they'd hung out in Tim's room, and only their friends that know were there; well, their friends and more bottles of Jack Daniels than Buster cares to remember. They'd toasted Tim and his fastball and his curveball and the Giants and San Francisco in general and baseball in general until Buster was dizzy and reeling, and they try to keep it low-key whenever they're not alone but one thing he does remember is that Tim ended up sitting in his lap, head lolling against his chest.

Tim's still dead to the world, his breath dampening the thin skin at Buster's collarbone. Buster doesn't want to get up yet anyway; he needs gatorade and painkillers, but who knows how many more mornings he'll have, to lie here just feeling Tim's long body laid out against his, Tim's hair brushing his skin, the smooth muscles they've worked so hard for, hours with the weights when Tim would rather have been gaming, or smoking up, or hitting the beach, or throwing the ball. They've worked so hard for this, and Buster's chest gets tight when he thinks about the way Tim's face looked, in the glow of the tv screen as they sat with the coaches and Tim's new agent and half the team, waiting to hear his name. Buster's not in a lot of doubt that he'll go plenty high next year, but scouts have never liked Tim as much as they should given that he carves hitters up and leaves them for half-dead every time he takes the mound, and even with the Golden Spikes in the trunk of his crappy car and an ERA under 2.00 in the conference and 0.69 in Cape Cod, there was no guarantee he'd go in the first round, and Buster had known it, no matter what he'd said over and over again to Tim in the dark hours of the night.

But tenth was good, good enough that everyone thinks Tim will get what he wanted, the bonus big enough to let his dad retire, and his agent's in San Francisco right now, hammering out the terms; and when he's done, in another week or two, Tim will sign, and then the school year will end and Buster will go to the Cape again and Tim will be playing pro ball, all the way across the country, in Oregon, or maybe San Jose.

They really ought to get up, Buster thinks; the party's been good, Tim ought to celebrate after all these years of work, but they can't just stop living their regular lives completely; he needs to do laundry and they need to eat normal food and holy shit, he's got a paper due Friday and he's only got a page written. That thought wakes him completely, but although usually he'd just get up and get to it, he still doesn't want to let go of Tim. Instead he sweeps his hand up and down Tim's arm, his side, shaking him a little until he shifts, warm and a little sweaty, and moans into Buster's chest. "Yeah," he mutters, "Jesus," and it's so low and throaty that even though Buster knows Tim's telling him to fuck off, he still feels something, that excitement low in his gut that's always there whenever Tim's naked and sounding like that.

He gives him a second and then shakes him again, and Tim groans and finally opens his eyes. "Fuck you," he says, but he shoves at Buster until he rolls off and out of the way and they both can clamber out of the bed. "Check the door?" Tim says, and Buster takes a quick look, but the main room of the suite's deserted and Tim's safe to go out in his boxers to take a piss in the shared bathroom. While he does it Buster grabs a couple of advil and tosses them back, first things first, and he thinks again about the to-do list.

It just doesn't feel right, though, the idea that they'll get breakfast and Buster will hit the library, spend the next seventy-two hours pounding out equations and text. He's got this weird nagging feeling the whole time he's brushing his teeth, thankful to get the taste out of his mouth, but it's only when he shuts the door again that he figures it out. Tim's pulled on a Seminoles shirt and his loose workout shorts, and he's standing at the window with the baseball that's always on Buster's desk in his hand, running through pitch grips and staring out at the quad.

"Hey," Buster says. "I was gonna drive up home today. Want to come?"

Tim twists a little, stretching his back. "I've got class," he says, and Buster's silent, staring at him, long enough that he finally looks up, and when he meets Buster's eyes he can't hold it together, the laughter cracking his face wide open, although pretty quickly he winces, one hand going to the same place on his forehead where Buster's got his own reminder of last night. "Yeah, I don't care," he says after a second, grinning more cautiously at Buster, his smile lighting up his whole face. "But I would if you wanted me to," and Buster has to bite his lip to keep from just shoving him back down on the bed right now, and forget about the trip.

"Just go enough that you can pass them, ok," Buster says, and twenty minutes later they're in Buster's truck with a couple liters of gatorade, two cups of coffee, and a six-pack of glazed donuts that Buster hadn't even bothered trying to talk Tim out of. The advil's kicked in, and his headache is pretty much gone.

*

Leesburg's only a two-hour drive, less if you're willing to speed. It's a Wednesday in late spring and everyone's at work or school, so the road's empty, but Buster doesn't rush it, just running a comfortable five miles over the limit and relaxing into the familiar drive. His grades in high school had been good enough that Stanford had wanted him, and he'd thought about it, flown out to California to meet with their coaches and tour the facilities. He'd almost gone. It would've been a good education. But he's done ok at FSU, where the degree won't look as glossy on his wall but the professors are just as sharp, and he'd wanted to be near home. Not for the first time, he thinks that if he'd taken the offer, he wouldn't have met Tim, but now he glances over at him, rooting around in the bag of CDs he keeps in Buster's front seat, hair falling forward and hiding his face, and wonders if maybe Stanford's team trains with the Giants' minor leaguers sometimes.

There's been good rain, so everything is green, and Buster wishes he could keep the windows open on the highway. They stop in Cairo for gas, but otherwise they just drive, talking about nothing in particular, the guys Buster's going to share an apartment with up north, Tim's plans to take his dad and brother on vacation for a few days before he reports, some video game that's coming out next week that Buster's never heard of ("You really are gonna pass your classes, right?" he can't stop himself from saying, and he can tell Tim is rolling his eyes even behind his sunglasses), the way the Wake second baseman had actually tripped over himself getting out of the way of Tim's third-strike curve, in their last game. Buster's the one who brings it up, and Tim laughs his snorting laugh, his whole body in it like usual, wiggling in his seat to imitate the poor guy, but Buster thinks suddenly, _our last game_. He's been telling Tim for almost two years that things will work out, they play so great together now that whoever takes Tim won't be able to resist taking Buster too, but what if some crappy team, the Astros or the Marlins, wants him before the Giants pick? Or what if the Giants think they need more pitching in the first round; they almost always take pitchers. The thought makes his stomach tighten, like it's been doing all week, whenever he really thought about what this means: it might have been their last game. They're through Albany now, though, veering away from the interstate, and the road's narrowed to a couple lanes. Buster rolls the window down, and the smell of the fields, fresh dirt and sunshine, makes him feel better.

When he glances over at Tim, he's looking out the window. Buster's come up here for a weekend once a month or so since he got to FSU, but he's never brought Tim. He wonders what Tim's seeing, whether he likes it, whether the green of the soybeans looks anything like the green of the west coast. Probably not; the picture in his head is overcast and lush, saturated, and here everything is bright and hot. By the end of August it'll be burned up.

He slows up as they get close to town. "Almost there," he says, and Tim looks over, shooting him a quick smile.

"Cool," he says. He looks happy, relaxed, and it's nice to see him that way. The month or so before the draft, he'd tightened up, pretending not to care as long as he went high, but Buster knows the way things are working out is a relief, just from the way Tim's shoulders are loose and the tension lines around his mouth are gone, and he resolves again, for the hundredth time this week, not to let Tim see how weird he feels all of a sudden, now that Tim's getting what he's worked so hard to land.

They park downtown, just off Main on the same side street Buster's parents have been parking on his whole life, the same one he used all through high school. Tim wants a pack of gum, so they go to Snyder's. Tanya Johnson is working the register, and Buster should've known they wouldn't make it through five minutes without running into someone he knew. She looks up from her magazine when they come in, flipping her streaked hair back over her shoulder, and Buster's stomach clenches as he watches her take in Tim's hair, the knotted bracelets on his wrist. _Fag_ , he can almost hear, as her lips get tight, and then the next glance as she says "Hey, Buster": _what's Posey doing with him?_

"Hey Tanya," he says quickly. "This is Tim Lincecum, he's on my team."

He was right; she relaxes, with the explanation. Maybe she even recognizes the name, they play FSU games on ESPN sometimes, and now she's looking at Tim's shoulders instead, his team shirt, and the clench in Buster's stomach is different. "Hey," she says, nodding to Tim. He nods back, but he's distracted, already poking around in the rack of gum and shit next to the counter. Buster knows he can't get out with less than ten minutes of conversation, so he gets right down to it, asking Tanya about her brother, who's in high school now, her parents, carefully not asking about the baby he held once, summer after senior year, until she pulls a photo out of her wallet, a little girl in a polka-dotted dress, showing it off proudly enough that Buster thinks, well, maybe things are working out ok. Tim looks too, as he puts the gum down with a dollar bill, leaning over Buster's shoulder. "Cute," he says, and Tanya smiles at him.

Buster figures they'd better get out while they're ahead, so he pulls Tim away before he can do much more than look twice at the shelf of souvenir shot glasses at the front of the aisles. There's not too much else to see downtown, but Buster drives him by the elementary school, the high school, the football field, before taking the road out of town again.

The gravel of the drive crunches under the truck wheels, and as they hop out, slamming the doors shut, Buster's mother comes around the house from the garden, wiping her hands on her shirt. She's not rushing, but she looks a little worried.

"Sorry mom," he says, "I should've called. Everything's fine, just had a free day and figured I'd come down."

Her face relaxes again, but now she looks from him to Tim. She's met him, of course, a dozen times after games, or that one week she came and stayed at a hotel in Cape Cod and cleaned the crappy apartment they'd been sharing with Mike and Jake and Jonny and cooked the only real meals they had all summer, but Tim looks tentative, and Buster's mom's eyebrows are up just slightly, a faint air of surprise that Buster hopes Tim can't read, and Buster thinks -- why haven't I talked about him more? Why haven't we all had dinner in Tallahassee? Well -- he knows why.

His mom's a pro, though, and her forehead smooths out and she just says "Nice to see you, Tim. I heard, of course, congratulations. That's a great team." That makes Tim grin, the dreamy look that's been on his face for a week now, and he thanks her and it's all ok.

It makes it easy for Buster, too, to say "Yeah, it's been kind of a crazy week, and I just thought, you know, get away. Figured I'd finally show him the place." He winces, because -- _finally?_ \-- that means he's been thinking about it.

His mom just smiles, though. "OK," she says. "Can you get the eggs, then, Buster? I was going to send the kids when they get home, but they'd rather throw the ball around, I know."

"Sure," he says.

"Maybe a batch of cookies," she says, still smiling, and Buster grins back, thinking again about that week on the Cape. Tim's pretty much always hungry, and she'd made cookies once a day, then left them dough in the freezer when she went back home.

"OK, go on then," she says, looking from Tim to Buster, then turning back towards the house. "Bucket's where it should be."

__*_ _

Buster doesn't think he's really going to get much help from Tim with the eggs, but he makes him put gloves on anyway and slip rubbers over his shoes before they go into the henhouse. And yeah, Tim's wrinkling his nose at the smell right away. "Should've gone to econ instead, Posey" he says, and hangs back by the door as Buster checks around.

But he crouches down when Buster beckons, and Buster guesses he shouldn't really be so surprised when Tim turns out to be good at this after all, the long fingers on his right hand sliding gently under the hen, his left hand soothing her. "Man," he says, shaking his head and looking at the egg in his hand, then smiling up at Buster.

They leave the bucket, covered, just inside the door, so they can pick it up on their way back, and go out into the yard again. Buster shows him the mound and the batting cage they'd built when he was in middle school, and he gets down in the crouch so Tim can try it out, careful since Buster doesn't have his gear.

He jogs over once he's caught the ball a couple times. Tim's scuffing the rubber with his toe. "Not bad," Tim says. "Just like home."

Usually when Tim talks about Washington, or the mound in his own backyard, or about his dad and his brother, he's got a wistful catch to his voice, unless it's after one of those long calls that leave him tense and snapping for hours afterwards, the calls that make Buster think he knows why Tim turned down a full ride from U-Dub to come so far away from home he's only been able to visit once since he got to Florida. But now he just sounds fond, and Buster thinks, he can get all the plane tickets he wants now.

"C'mon," Buster says, his throat tightening. "I'll show you the barn."

The old building is high and drafty, the ghost of old hay and the smell of motor oil from the car his dad and the kids are fixing up, and Buster remembers doing that with his pickup, getting it into shape before he turned sixteen so he'd know how to take care of it later. Tim doesn't care about cars though, and right now neither does Buster. The ladder to the loft isn't sturdy enough for two, so he holds it for Tim before climbing up himself.

It hasn't really changed since last summer, and why would it? Buster always figured his kids would be reading and wrestling and making out on the same beat-up old couch he and Jonny Mills had dragged up here in eighth grade. His mom had given him a rummage-sale rug, and he'd hung a poster with Ted Williams's swing mechanics, and those are still here. There's a pile of books on the floor, probably Sam judging by the heavy physics textbook, and that's it.

Tim's gone straight to the window, of course, leaning out to see how far he can see. Buster leans next to him, pointing out the property line, the path to the creek, the fields his dad is renting to the Mercer farm.

"Kids get home in an hour or so," Buster says. Tim's shoulder is warm against his.

"What do you wanna show me next?"

"I dunno," Buster says, and kisses him.

They make out for a while, lazy kisses, and Tim surprises him, pushing him onto the couch and climbing over him. This was how it had always been with Kristen in high school; she'd said he was too heavy to be on top. Tim usually ends up under him though, twisting and gasping until Buster can barely hold him flat even though he's got forty pounds on him, and they both like it that way. But Buster likes this too, Tim's slight weight straddling him, grinding down a little against him, his hands roaming over Tim's back, his soft t-shirt, down into the pockets of his jeans, Tim's hair brushing his cheeks. They can't do too much and they both know it, so they just kiss and kiss and kiss, in the warm still dusty air.

*

Buster's mom waits to call them in until the sun's already going down, dusk sweeping into the yard. They've been playing catch for a while; around 3:30 the kids got home, whooping and hollering when they saw Buster's truck in the drive. Buster and Sam take turns tossing BP to each other; it's good to see her leveling out, shoulders back, just like he taught her when she was five, and fun to trade a little trash talk when they swing and miss. When Buster's dad gets home he comes out too, claps Buster on the shoulder, shakes hands with Tim, and then they all watch for a while as Tim tries to teach Jess the new curveball grip he's been using. It goes sort of ok -- Jess only spikes it six feet in front of the plate about half the time -- and they all laugh and shout conflicting advice until Jess finally throws his hands up. Even he's grinning, though, and Buster sees him tuck Tim's baseball in his back pocket instead of giving it back. Tim's a first-round draft pick. It's a lucky ball.

When they're all inside, passing the pot roast around the table, it's so easy to fall back into the old routine, asking about each other's days. Tim's a little too loud at first, talking fast when Buster's dad asks him questions about his agent, about SF's plans for him, and Buster wishes again he'd done this before, wishes Tim knew his family, but he settles down, and after half an hour on baseball, Jess and Jack switch to ragging on Sam about her new boyfriend. Buster vaguely remembers him, Joey Givens' little brother; underneath the teasing, it sounds like they like him, like he's good-looking, smart, a nice boy, and Buster hopes it works out, hopes he meets the guy again soon, all grown up. When he looks across the table at Tim, thinking about boyfriends, he's got kind of a weird look on his face, but he's eating his way steadily through his second plate of pot roast, so Buster guesses things are ok enough.

They don't stay long after dinner, even though Buster's mom looks worried again, that faint line between her eyes. "Buster, you sure you can get back ok?," she asks. "There's your room, and the couch."

That's not how Buster wants to spend tonight, though, in his old bed with Tim on the couch downstairs. "Mom, it's not that late," he says. "We'll be ok. I'll send you a text when we're back."

She gives them an extra bag of cookies, and hesitates for a second, but hugs Tim too, after she hugs Buster. The others shake Tim's hand, congratulate him again, and then they're slamming the truck doors again, pulling away.

The drive back seems longer than it had this morning, the thick dark pressing down around them, only the occasional oncoming headlights to break the monotony. Tim's quiet, too; they talk for a little while, but then he puts a CD in and settles back against the passenger door, and after a while Buster realizes he's barely said a word for an hour. It's peaceful, though, and Buster only has to keep half a mind on the road. Instead he thinks about Tim in the barn loft this afternoon, his face, tanned dark from a season of baseball in the Florida sun, his strong arms, his soft mouth, the tattoo Buster kissed when they finally slowed, when they finally rolled off the couch to go out, and Buster couldn't help pulling Tim back against him just one last time, sliding the collar of his shirt aside until he could do what he wanted, press his nose into the back of Tim's neck and breathe in.

As they get closer to Tallahassee, there's more light on the road, strip clubs, bars, Wal-Marts, and then their own buildings are looming up in front of them: the gym, the stadium, the dorm where Tim lived Buster's freshman year, in a tiny triple with a stoner musician and a guy in the engineering program. Buster wonders what's happened to them; he'd liked Paul, who'd been quiet and serious, but as they've gone on it's been harder and harder to really know people outside the tight circle of the team. Maybe Tim knows, and he glances over to ask, but Tim's staring out the window on the other side, looking at a bunch of freshman girls stumbling home from a frat party. Or at least he's looking in their direction; Buster knows Tim pretty well by now, and he's pretty sure he's not checking them out, not even the one with the gold miniskirt that doesn't even cover her butt.

"Your place or mine?" he asks instead, and Tim looks over with a faint smile.

"You, I guess," he says. "Mike's still with Donna."

Buster mugs to make Tim laugh, because Tim's roommate getting to a whole second week with a girl is really news, but Tim's smile barely grows, and Buster's stomach clenches up. He turns into the athlete lot, pulls into a spot, and kills the engine, and he doesn't like to waste time, never has, so he turns to Tim to ask, and feels the question die on his lips.

The air seems to get colder between them as they walk upstairs. There's nobody in the suite again, so they could just go straight to Buster's room, but Tim stops, instead, getting two beers out of the fridge in the common room. He pops them both on the counter and hands one to Buster. He's not looking at him.

"I--I have to let my mom know we're back," Buster hears himself say, and Tim looks even tenser for a second.

"Yeah," he says, though, and Buster digs his phone out, taking his time. How long can it take to send a simple "we got back OK, thanks for dinner," though? A few seconds at best and he's looking back up at Tim, the knot in his stomach growing until he feels like he'll burst if Tim doesn't--

"Your family's pretty--great," Tim says, and -- what?

"Yeah," he finally says when he realizes that Tim's not going to say anything else.

Tim takes a deep breath. "I mean -- I just -- I kind of get it better now, what you, you keep saying about them, about growing up there, why you wanted to stay here. And I -- I'd understand if you. If it was too much to -- you used to have a girlfriend."

Buster stares at him, at a loss. Tim's peeling the label off his bottle, bit by bit, his long fingernails scratching the glue. Finally Buster says, "Tim, you're crazy."

"But if you couldn't," Tim says. "If it was too much."

Buster shakes his head. He takes the beer out of Tim's hand, and puts it down with his own, on the counter, then he hooks his fingers in the back of Tim's collar and tugs Tim into the bedroom, kicking the door closed after him and making sure he hears the latch click. Then he's pushing Tim down to sit on the bed, and falling to his knees.

"We should've stayed," he says, looking up at Tim's face in the half-dark, just the halogen buzz from the streetlamp outside. "There's a place -- we could've gotten a six-pack, you're legal but it's not that hard anyway, not from the gas station on the north side of town. We could've gone down by the swimming hole. There wouldn't be anybody there that early on a school night."

Tim's breath catches as Buster flicks the button on his shorts. "Getting busted in backwoods Georgia, great way to start my career," he says, but his breath's coming a little fast already.

"Nah," Buster says confidently, working Tim's zipper down. "Never been anybody busted down there for years. It's too deep in the woods, you can hear the cops coming from a quarter of a mile away."

"Snakes," Tim says faintly.

"Oh yeah," Buster says. "Definitely. They're harmless, though, just garters, and the bears are scared of people. Now mountain lions, those you c'n worry about...." But he can't keep a straight face, and he's laughing against Tim's skin now, burying his face against Tim's stomach the way he did against his neck earlier. "Tim," he says, when he catches his breath, gripping handfuls of Tim's shorts, "Tim, I wish we would've stayed. I wish I would've showed you this place."

Tim's already hard for him, and Buster doesn't make it fancy, doesn't drag it out like they've done a hundred times, like he did just last week, the night before the draft, pinning Tim's wrists to the bed and kneeling over him, taking his time, taking it slow, dragging out every last second before the moment Tim would leave. He didn't know, that night, why he did it that way, and he's not sure he knows why he does it fast now, why he grabs Tim's hips and pulls him forward until Tim's cock's further down his throat than it's ever been before, until he chokes and pants and feels spit sliding out of his mouth. He can hear Tim above him over the roaring in his ears, random words falling out of his mouth, "yeah," and "god," and Buster's name, over and over again, and he can feel Tim's fingers in his hair, tugging him off, but he doesn't want that, so he goes down again and again and again, the half-burn in the back of his throat, until Tim's coming with a shout, and Buster has to move back or he really would choke.

As it is he half-swallows, half-coughs, has to reach out to wipe come off his face with a corner of the sheet, and that's really sexy, he thinks, rolling his eyes. But Tim's fallen back on the bed, breathing hard.

"I wish we would've stayed," Buster says again, and he hopes Tim can hear what he means, all he can say without saying too much, when they've got another draft and years in the minors and God knows what else between now and the next time they'll see each other again.

"Yeah," Tim says, staring at the ceiling, and Buster hears _I wish I weren't going_ , and it knocks the breath out of him.

"Next draft," he says, for the thousandth time. Neither of them really believes it, but after a second Tim sits up, and he smiles at Buster and reaches down to pull him up onto the bed. They haven't brushed their teeth, and Buster's still dressed, and in the morning they'll be one day closer to Tim leaving, but they're still here for a few more days. They still have time.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Liminal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3254237) by [sophiahelix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/pseuds/sophiahelix)




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